Wherein I rant about political matters after having had an extremely large and hard-to-expel bowel movement.

Democracy has spoken. After a fashion. I am losing my faith in governments and their empty promises (you�re all shaking your heads and thinking, �Elgan, Elgan, how naive can you be?�). For example, the P�quistes rammed these forced municipal mergers down our throats. The Liberals campaigned with the promise that they would allow municipalities to hold demerger referendums. The Liberals won a majority government (that wasn�t the only reason, everyone was just so heartily sick of the PQ and their separatist policies), and then promptly passed Bill 9 limiting the democratic process. (If you�ve heard this before, I apologize. I�m getting older, and we seniors tend to repeat ourselves.) It required that at least 35% of registered voters vote for demerger. On a good election day, that many will make it to the polling booth, period. So they gave with one hand and took away with the other. The magic number for L�ville to secede from Sh�brooke was just under 1,400. We didn�t make it by a very slim margin. And that�s democracy. Hence, L�ville will continue to be a borough of the larger municipality and will hopefully not suffer reprisals (i.e. be punished) for its attempt to regain its former independence. The City of Westmount got out of greater M�treal amid much rejoicing on the television last night, but we blew it. Sigh�

Rereading that last paragraph made me realize that we were trying to be separatists, which is what the Liberals were trying to prevent. Except that it�s completely different when you�ve been forced into a relationship you didn�t want in the first place after having been independent. Bah! The weather was too nice, people went to the beach instead of the polling station, anarchistic young people went to exercise their right to spoil ballots (see this blog and the accompanying comments for June 20), and most people simply don�t care, or they are too concerned that their taxes will go up. I�ve got news for you guys, your taxes are going up, no matter which municipality you belong to. One of the really nasty things about Bill 9 was that the towns would not revert to their original autonomy, but would still be inextricably connected to the larger city and pay it two-thirds of their taxes. Bah on you, Jean Charest! And we thought you were on our side. Bah again!

In other news we can now concentrate on the upcoming federal elections. Yeah, right, like anyone has any energy after that last disappointment to really pay attention to a whole bunch of rhetoric and posturing. One of the nice things about being Canadian (there are a whole bunch of nice things, like universal health care, unemployment insurance, gay marriage, official bi-lingualism, multi-culturalism) is that we are not stuck with a two-party system like our dear neighbours to the south. Oh no, we have choices! Except right now they are poo-poo choices. Jeejeen has put it quite apty in her diatribe over at the other place. If we elect the New Conservatives we risk becoming more like the States. If we re-elect the Liberals with their jackass leader we make a mockery of what Canada is all about. The only feasible alternative is Jack Layton�s NDP, which hasn�t a snowball�s hope in Hades of making a government, or even an opposition, because people are running scared of socialism. If it weren�t for those socialists, we wouldn�t have our universal health care system, you idiots (not you, you know who I mean). I just get so fed up with the electorate at times. Canadians are so conservative, really, even though we talk big, and that�s why I am worried that if the Conservatives are elected, all the progress we�ve made towards gay marriage and enshrining equality in the constitution will just fly out the window. Ass holes.

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